Day 10 – Beach volleyaball women’s finals

The countdown begins. There are only two shifts and two nights left of beach volleyball.

The evening shift

There are only two games during a night, so we no longer have two shifts per day, only one. The evening shift. (20:00 – 02:30 or how long it will go).

Today is the last day for a lot of volunteers, so there was already a lot of goodbyes and hugging.

My shift started with check-in as usual, but today we were not allowed to check-in. They were apparently re-doing the picture from yesterday. No one was allowed to check-in before. Nice!

The reason was that, apparently yesterday, there was too few people on the picture. But there was even less tonight. So go figure. Not sure for what they will use those pictures, or if we’ll ever see them. 😀

I managed to do my check-in half an hour later and then went straight to dinner. Because, I knew that the game time would be really busy and I would not have time.

Today I also brought my volleyball with me to get it signed from the gold medal winners.

The fight for the bronze medal

USA vs Brazil – This was a really close and exciting game. Both the teams put up a hell of a fight. USA was still better though. They won 2:1 and pushed Brazil to he 4th place. Luckily they also had a team fighting for the gold.

The fight for the gold

Germany vs Brazil – The tribunes were full. Completely full. So full that there was a line at the press entrance for broadcasters. They were not allowed at the tribunes until some places open up. Poor them. They were really angry in the line. So it was nice to walk up and down, passing them and seeing the angry faces. 😀

Journalists even showed up an hour before the game, that has not happened so far 😀

The game was not as exciting as the bronze game. I could clearly see that Germany was better. They had sharper moves and smarter serves. The Brazilians tried to put up a fight, but in the last set they just gave up. The Germans won the first set with 18:21. And the last set with 13:21, a really big gap for the finals.

My job during the games

Our team is responsible for taking care of the written press. They all have a distinctive mark on their accreditation cards (Yellow background and codes starting with E). We also supply water to them and try to solve any problems they might run into.

Today was extremely busy. We usually are fine with 2 cases of water, but not this time. Today we even started off with 4 cases. And I still ran up and down 3 more times :D. Plus, I had help.

But it was also around 27 degrees outside and climbing the stairs makes people thirsty.

While I was running around, I offered my help to some journalists. It then turned out that they were from the organizing committee of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics. They asked me if I was a volunteer and where I came from. When I said that I also have signed up for the winter Olympics, I got his business card. He told me to write to him and he can put me to the press team again. Win!!

A bit of trouble

Today was the first time that we encountered obnoxious spectators. There were 2 drunk guys that just couldn’t understand that they are not kings of the world. They had no accreditation on them and they still tried to go down from the exit for journalists and accredited people, they were loud, throwing beer around, etc. The journalists were complaining and we had to do something.

At one point, I was told by a German journalist that these guys had peed in a cup and then placed these cups on the press tribunes, they were afraid that they might throw them at some point.

While I was talking to the journalists, the guys just came into the press area and started taking pictures and disturbing the journalists work. They could not understand why they had to leave and then they started hugging and kissing me on the cheeks and taking selfies. So annoying.

Now it was time for back up. 😀 We have security standing on the tribunes just in case. So I found a person that spoke Portuguese and told them the story. We threw away the cups and the security guys promised to keep an eye out for them.

After a few interactions with the armed security, the guys calmed down. Later it turned out that the guys were athletes from the French volleyball team. 🙂

After the gold game, I moved from the tribunes to the mix zone. Mix zone is the area where athletes meet the press for the first time for their first interviews. Really exciting.

Today, the plan was that right after the gold game, there will be medal ceremony, then mix zone and then a press conference. In the mix zone, I was checking credentials of people that wanted to get in.

The first hours of thursday but last hours of the night

We had a press conference for the athletes and coaches. It was all in all around 15 minutes and I stood outside the whole time. Only because I needed to catch the German team to get their autographs on my ball. 😀 And I did!!! I am now only missing the winner tomorrow and then I have an awesome souvenir.

Everyone has been admiring my volleyball and thought it was an excellent idea and wished they had thought of that. 😀

Even my managers wanted to see and told me it was a great idea. After the athletes left, we were ready to close up for the night.

One night to go and it will be amazing! Tomorrow we will also have a party afterwards, so it will be a late night. 😀